Mass shooting at Waffle House renews calls for common sense gun reform

Investigators comb the scene where four people were murdered at the Waffle House on Murfreesboro Road in Antioch early Sunday morning, April 22. Four others were wounded. In the days following the shooting, Bishop J. Mark Spalding offered prayers for the victims and for “sensible solutions for such acts of violence.”

Tragedy struck an American city once again, this time in the wee hours of April 22, when a gunman fatally shot four innocent people at a Waffle House in Antioch, just outside Nashville.

Metro councilperson Antionette Lee kisses James Shaw Jr. on the cheek after a press confernece were he was hailed as a hero for disarming the gunman who opened fire at the Waffle House.

James Shaw Jr., the hero who disarmed the shooter of his AR-15 rifle, likely prevented even more people from being hurt or killed. He has since been honored by the Tennessee State Legislature, the Nashville Predators and others for his heroic actions. He has also helped raise close to $200,000 to support the victims’ families.

“We pray for those killed and injured in the horrific and senseless shooting at the Waffle House in Antioch on Sunday morning. May God embrace them in his mercy and may their families and friends find consolation and healing in His boundless love,” Diocese of Nashville Bishop J. Mark Spalding said in a statement.

“We pray also in grateful thanksgiving for the people of light who showed themselves in moments of darkness. The first responders and medical personnel who aided the victims, the police and law enforcement officials that responded to protect the community, and the individuals who reacted to the emergency are examples of good acting in the face of evil.

“Finally, we pray for the community and our nation to bring about sensible solutions for such acts of violence that we may live in peace,” Bishop Spalding said.

St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, the closest parish in the diocese to the scene of the crime, held the victims up in prayer during daily Mass in the days following the shooting. Parish representatives said that none of the victims were parishioners or had a known connection to the church.

Perez, a recent transplant from Texas to Nashville, hailed from a Catholic family; his funeral was held Tuesday, May 1, at St. Anthony Catholic Church in Kyle, Texas.

The shooting occurred before dawn on Sunday, April 22, and a manhunt of the area concluded Monday afternoon, April 23, around 1 p.m. when the suspect, Travis Reinking, was captured and arrested by members of the Metro Nashville Police Department. He is currently being held without bail, awaiting trial.

The deadly Waffle House shooting has once again sparked calls – and resistance – for stricter gun control laws in Tennessee and nationwide. In a press conference the evening of April 22, Nashville Mayor David Briley called for comprehensive gun reform, declaring “enough is enough.”

“We need comprehensive gun reform to address mass shootings, domestic shootings, accidental shootings and homicides. If we can all just come together for the greater good, we can take these weapons of war off the streets of our country,” Briley said.

Reinking, who had recently moved to Tennessee from Illinois, had, for months, shown signs of significant instability, according to Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Nashville Police Department.

According to multiple news reports, Reinking believed that the musician Taylor Swift was stalking him, and he had been arrested by Secret Service agents last summer for crossing a security barrier at the White House, referring to himself as “a sovereign citizen,” and claiming he had a right to speak with the president.

After an investigation by the FBI office in Springfield, Illinois, state and local officials confiscated Reinking’s guns and revoked his firearm license.

Tazewell, Illinois, County deputies allowed Reinking’s father to take possession of his weapons on the promise that he would not return them to his son. However, according to Aaron, the Nashville police spokesman, Reinking’s father, “has now acknowledged giving them back to his son.”

According to local news reports, Susan Niland, a spokeswoman with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said despite the fact that Reinking was forbidden from having guns in Illinois, it didn’t mean he couldn’t have them in Tennessee.

“It does not appear that there is anything in his record that would have been deniable from our end,” Niland said.

This case highlights how the nation’s patchwork gun laws, often left up to individual states, can leave open dangerous loopholes. Even though the shooter had his firearms license revoked, making it illegal for him to possess guns in Illinois, it was still legal for him to have them in Tennessee, a state that has no firearm license requirements, as well as myriad other lax gun laws.

In recent years, the Republican-dominated state legislature has been “totally pro-gun,” blocking bills that call for tighter restrictions on guns, according to Tennessee Catholic Public Policy Commission Executive Director Jennifer Murphy.

But that could be changing. In the days following the Waffle House shooting, state legislators did pass a bill, HB 958/SB 834, that will empower local law enforcement officials to prevent some people with severe mental illness from acquiring guns.

This year’s legislative session, which wrapped up late on April 25, saw the defeat of a number of bills that would have expanded gun access and carry laws.

Murphy, who monitors legislation of interest to Catholics and lobbies on behalf of the state’s three bishops, noted that “fortunately the bill to arm teachers did not pass,” referring to HB2208, which would have allowed some public-school teachers to carry firearms in the classroom.

Several bills that would have allowed people to carry loaded handguns in public with no permit or training required also failed.

Beth Joslin Roth, policy director for the Safe Tennessee Project, a gun violence prevention organization, closely tracks legislation related to the state’s gun laws, and noted that most “good gun bills” didn’t make it out of committee for a vote. But looking ahead, “I’m a little bit optimistic,” she said.

“More people across the entire country are paying a lot of attention to gun violence,” Roth said. “A lot of that is driven by the activism of young people who are committed to this issue for the long haul, and that will continue to move the needle.”

According to a recent poll from Middle Tennessee State University, “the majority of Tennesseans do support common sense gun laws,” which Roth noted was not the case just a few years ago. “I don’t think people in this state are nearly as divided as we’re led to believe.”

According to the national Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research organization that tracks gun violence in the United States, there have been 80 mass shootings in the country this year, defined as four or more people wounded or killed in a single incident; 11 of those have occurred since the Waffle House shooting. There have been three mass shootings in Tennessee, resulting in seven deaths and 10 injuries.